Posts from Interior Design

Some people just exude style and can be counted on to live in well put together and drool-worthy homes. Learn from them, because this ain't their first rodeo. They've cracked the design code and have a lot to teach you about what makes for sophisticated and spectacular spaces. What is their secret? Here are seven common home elements that all chic people share.

I recently wrote about mixing patterns in the home, and shared two simple tips for getting it right. However there's a third tip I didn't share, one that makes mixing colors and patterns a snap. I call it the Buddy System.

Maybe it's because I grew up in the 80s and never had to experience it firsthand, but I have a strange fascination with the interior design of the 70s. There are strange shapes, strange colors, strange things that you never thought you would see in an home, but there they are, bold and unabashed. In the 1970s, interior design reached a level of raw exuberance that has never been equaled since.

Much is made of mixing patterns, and all the factors to keep in mind when doing so. Between color, scale, design and texture, it can seem too intimidating to even bother. But you know what? It's really not rocket science, and anyone can do it. Read on for two simple ways to get pattern mixing right.

We know a lot of you are hanging out around here because you love design and aspire to a career in the design industry. There are tons of ways to get the knowledge and connections you need to break in, so is it worth it to go to design school? Here's one designer's answer.

What is it with those Scandinavians, anyway? Maybe all the time they spend inside during those long northern winters helps to account for the fact that everyone in Iceland, Denmark, Finland, Sweden and Norway has an absolutely perfect home. (At least according to the design blogs I read, anyway.) I've scoured the internet for the most beautiful Scandinavian spaces, and tricks you can steal from each one to get that super-stylish look... without spending the whole winter indoors.

When we talk about good design, we pay a lot of attention to function, shape, color, texture and proportion. And quite rightly: a well-designed space will take into account all these various elements, and the combination thereof. But what we don't talk about enough (in my opinion, anyway) is pattern. It seems that it's treated as an "extra" most of the time, something only for the brave, or only usable in certain situations. Isn't it time we changed that?

Nothing makes a room quite like a big, bold piece of art — and nothing makes a room look frumpy quite like a lonely, undersized print floating in a big expanse of white wall. But the problem, as you probably know, is that big pieces of art come with big price tags. What's a designer on a budget to do? Read on.

After the chintz overload of the 80s, wallpaper fell out of fashion for a long while. But now it's staging a comeback, as decorators slowly begin to embrace pattern once again. But what can you do if you're in love with a certain paper, but don't want to commit to covering a whole wall (or even a whole room)? Here are seven unexpected ways to use wallpaper.

This is the living room of my most recent home, at the point where I started to get things right. Sort of.

I was an architect in a former life, and as a result I probably care more than is emotionally healthy about how my home looks, and also, because I am used to being a Designer, I feel tremendous pressure to not mess anything up, design-wise, ever. But even though I know lots about color theory and I can provide a decent explanation of Brutalism and Mannerism and many other isms, I mess things up all the time. I've decided to share three of my biggest goofs, as an exercise in humility, and, hopefully as a way of ensuring that you, the reader, will never have to make the same mistakes.